Just My Cup Of Tea
by WolfButler
Summary: A little episode of a young Artemis trying to be nice! It all goes a bit pearshaped though! My first FanFic! Hope you like it! :D by the way Eoin Colfer owns everything! except the cup of tea! I thought made it with an imaginary kettle so it is mine!


Just my cup of tea

Butler's eyes snapped open at the first tinkle of breaking china. The bodyguard had grabbed his Sig Saur from under his pillow and was half way out of his bedroom door, still barefooted, before he was fully awake. He glanced at his watch; it was three minuets past five in the morning. The manservant froze at the top of the grand staircase, cocking his head like a dog, and straining his ears to listen. There were the normal noises, such as the elephantine snores coming from his uncle, The Major's room and the snuffles from Juliet's. Trying to hear past the rumbles he heard a scraping of wood on stone. A chair in the kitchen? Someone, or _something_ was in the kitchen. Scraping a chair around. At five in the morning!!

Butler had no idea who that could be though, as one of the Fowls would have certainly woken all three of the resident Butlers up before even thinking about making an early breakfast by _themselves _for heavens sake!! And why would Juliet or the Major get up a minuet earlier than could be avoided, even if they had not been obviously asleep this time?

As he was making his way silently downstairs he remembered what day it was. Saturday, yes, but it was also his birthday. Typical for an intruder to wake him up today, he could have had a lie in until at _least_ half six. Never mind, it wasn't as if anyone would remember. He had hardly remembered himself. Juliet might though, he mused before concentrating on the job at hand.

Dawn was breaking through the kitchen window and that wasn't the only thing that was broken. A mug was in smithereens on the tiles, a brownish coloured liquid splattered up the whitewashed cupboards. Gingerly Butler dipped his finger into the debris, it was still warm and judging by the smell, it had been a cup of tea up until recently.

Another noise broke the silence, a chair scraping over the stones. Butler crouched, then like an Olympic racer off the starting blocks he rounded the breakfast bar.

A young boy of about eight screamed and dropped the second cup that morning onto the flagstones.

"Butler?" yelled Artemis.

"Artemis?" yelled Butler.

They stared at each other for a moment, before,

"Artemis what are you doing?" Butler asked, looking down at the boy who, even though he was stood on a chair to reach the worktop, was still at least two feet below Butler's head height.

"I was trying to concoct a surprise for you, until you startled me," whined Artemis.

Butler was about to say that Artemis had indeed succeeded greatly in giving him a surprise but the boy cut him off by saying,

"Now kindly wait outside while I finish up in here."

Butler sighed thinking that Artemis couldn't possibly do much more damage and retreated towards the kitchen door.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to..."

"Out!!" ordered the boy with such ferocity that Butler did indeed "_out_" very quickly, and spent the next five minuets or so (Butler wasn't really counting) that Artemis was in the kitchen, swearing under his breath and picking shards of broken china out of the bottom of his foot.

Exactly five minuets and thirty six seconds later Butler could hear Artemis approaching the kitchen door and stepped away from it as fast as he could without tea/blood staining the expensive Egyptian rug that lined the hall's varnished wooden floorboards.

"Are you ready?" asked a voice strained with concentration.

A smile played around Butler's lips. He doubted he would ever be truly ready for anything that Young Master Fowl plunged them both into, especially something that had the budding genius's brain _concentrating _for heavens sake. But he answered yes anyway.

However, the bodyguard could not possibly been prepared for what happened next even if he had attended a centaury of Madame Ko's Bodyguard Training.

Artemis came through the door backwards whether to hide his "surprise" or simply to open the door, the manservant never got round to asking him as immediately after the boy entered the hallway he tripped over the posh rug's posh frilly edge.

This had more drastic consequences than you may think as little Arty was carrying a cup of scalding hot tea.

Luckily Butler _had_ trained for almost a decade in Madame Ko's "Art of Quick Thinking" class. (This class included one lesson where students had mere milliseconds to decide whether or not to jump into a bath of ice or get whacked between the eyes by Madame Ko's infamous "pointy stick". The aim was to choose whether she really was going to hit you, or was faking, and stand still or jump accordingly. Both options were rather uncomfortable and many trainees preferred to risk pneumonia than the "pointy stick", even if they had to sit in the bath for 30 minuets if they chose wrong).

Anyway. As the young Fowl fell, Butler decided that Artemis was the most important out of the three objects, the cup, the rug and the boy, even if it was Mrs Fowl's best rug (which incidentally Butler hated because it had cost more than three years worth of his salary and was a rather annoying beige colour that showed the dirt...)

He dived forward catching the boy like a professional cricket player, but unfortunately not the tea which decided to spite Butler for not thinking that _it_ was the most important and lashed back by catapulting its contents onto his grey pyjama top (thankfully missing his also grey trousers as this would have been considerably more painful not to mention embarrassing considering what had to be done next).

Instantly the boiling liquid saturated the material, and almost as instantly Butler had propped the young boy up against the door's frame, whipped off his sodden shirt and crossed the kitchen in three large, fast strides.

Tipping one of Artemis's previous attempts at a hot drink down the sink he filled the cup with iced water from the fridge and unceremoniously threw it down his front.

Artemis was devastated. He had really wanted to do something nice for his ever suffering manservant and the only thing he had succeeded in doing was well... Artemis surveyed the angry red waterfall that decorated Butler's six-pack. Ooppss.

"Is there anything I can... could I... how...?" Artemis couldn't believe he was actually _stuttering_.

Still, Butler understood enough to nod at a cupboard and say "There should be clean tea towels in there; you could fetch me a couple if you want to help."

Now it was Artemis's turn to play at being the servant as he scurried to the cupboard.

A short while later the two were sat in companionable silence. Both cross legged, one with a makeshift tea towel and bag of pea's icepack on his stomach the other with his head hung.

"Artemis?" asked Butler, after a while "just out of interest, what were you doing before I came in?"

"I was..." he began, when suddenly.

"What the...?! What happened here?!" Juliet interrupted as she burst into the room, narrowly skirting the smashed mess on the floor.

"I was... trying to make Butler a cup of tea for his birthday" the eight-year-old mumbled scrambling to his feet and turning as red Butler's burns.

After she had finished laughing uncontrollably and poking her older brother in the stomach Juliet managed to splutter out,

"Anyway that's funny! Because I was just coming down to do the same!! You beat me to it I guess!!"

And Butler looked up at his two favourite people and smiled. They had remembered.

Epilogue/ After thought 

After the trio cleaned up (vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and a lot of elbow grease was used on the posh rug which faded the tea stain to an annoying beige colour that showed the dirt. In total 3 cups were smashed, swept up and buried at the bottom of the grey bin just in case by some miracle the Fowl couple actually took the rubbish out themselves and discovered what could barely be distinguished as the 3 broken mugs) all three were presented with a cup of tea (black tea for Butler, black one sugar for Juliet and milk two sugars for Artemis) for their hard work, made by Artemis, with more than a little help from Juliet. Butler's 3rd degree burns soon healed and anyway he had had worse than that before now. Artemis apologised profusely for disturbing Butler's lie-in to which Butler replied that it had been much more interesting taking part in the morning's events than lying down for an extra hour or so. Finally when Mr and Mrs Fowl emerged from upstairs a few hours later, after _their_ lie-in, there was nothing to suggest that anything out of the ordinary had happened except perhaps a slightly red Artemis, giggling Juliet and the fact that Butler winced a little when he was moving the TV upstairs for them later, which involved pressing the electrical box against his stomach. The Major gave Butler a pat on the back and said in his usual gruff manner: "It's a wonder you survived this long" which then again could have been referring to the fact that a vase had just fallen from the top landing, courtesy of Artemis, yet again, who seemed to be having a "smashing" day. Anyway, it had missed Butler's head (as he bent down to tie his laces) by so little that if he had had hair it would have shaved the top off. Either that or his uncle had remembered that had made it through another year. The older Fowls never realised it was anything other than a normal ordinary Saturday, but as Butler pinned two handmade cards to his headboard, one computerised, the other pop-star-sticker-rised, and set his alarm for another 6 o'clock start, he was happy. They had exceeded his expectations at least. Two (possibly three) people had remembered his birthday, plus the emails from his parents he supposed. Life wasn't so bad, he thought.


End file.
